05/12/2026
We are thrilled to announce the world premiere of San Francisco Film Preserve’s definitive restoration of F.W. Murnau’s 1927 masterpiece SUNRISE: A SONG OF TWO HUMANS — our most ambitious and comprehensive project yet.
📽️ https://filmpreserve.org/restoration/sunrise-a-song-of-two-humans/
The world premiere takes place Saturday, June 20, 2026, on the iconic Piazza Maggiore in Bologna, opening the 40th edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato. SUNRISE will be accompanied live by the Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna, conducted by Timothy Brock, performing a brand new score.
🎞️ https://ilcinemaritrovato.it/en/sections/?main-section=the-cinephiles-heaven
SFFP’s SUNRISE project is a landmark effort to restore all surviving motion picture materials related to Murnau’s classic: three complete versions of the film, plus the original trailer and a reel of outtakes.
At the project’s centerpiece is a 4K restoration of the American Movietone release, drawn from the best surviving elements at the BFI National Archive, MoMA The Museum of Modern Art, and Cinémathèque royale de Belgique (CINEMATEK). Two reels of a 1927 35mm nitrate print from the George Eastman Museum — the only surviving reels from the original release — were used to perfectly restore Murnau’s play of light, dark, and shadow. BFI restored the Movietone soundtrack.
A second restoration, in collaboration with Národní filmový archiv (Prague), is based on a unique 35mm print of the Czechoslovak localized release shot from the export negative with alternate takes of every shot, offering rare insight into the film’s production.
Finally, a third restoration draws from a 35mm nitrate print belonging to Eye Filmmuseum: a Dutch-titled silent version made from the domestic American negative. It offers a window onto Murnau and cinematographer Charles Rosher’s original, uncropped full-aperture compositions — a framing lost in all other surviving copies.
The original trailer and a reel of outtakes are also in process, in collaboration with The Library of Congress National Audio-Visual Conservation Center.
Taken together, the SUNRISE Project represents a once-in-a-generation encounter with one of cinema’s great works. It is, in the fullest sense, a reunion with a film the world has never fully seen. One hundred years on, SUNRISE dawns again. 🌅
